I’m boring

The Atkins launch I have in the shop has a small leak somewhere in the shaft log area.  Since I built the boat, I know the bronze log was bedded in 5200 caulk so it shouldn’t have leaked, but water is very tenacious and usually wins that war.  So, the owner and I decided to create a fiberglass tube that surrounds the log, and to glue that tube into the wood stern post.  By the way, a shaft log is just anything that facilitates sealing up the hole in the boat that the prop shaft runs through.  The log can be bronze (usually) or glass (sometimes), and can run all the way through the boat, or just cap the ends of the shaft hole.  Anyway, we used the original shaft log and sheathed it in fiberglass/epoxy.  To allow for any differences in thermal expansion of different materials, I coated the log with a polyurethane adhesive/caulk before I glassed it. Here’s a couple pics of the log with caulk, and with glass:

Then, I machined the glassed log on the table saw to make it a smooth, relatively consistent cylinder.  Here’s a picture of that process:

It looks more dangerous that it is, but it is awfully messy.  Here’s the end result:

The next step is to drill the shaft hole oversize to accommodate the larger log.  Of course this new hole will determine the alignment of your shaft, so you have to make sure that is right before you go boring holes all willy-nilly like.  I used a dummy shaft to perfect the alignment of the boring jig, and then set up the jig.  Here it is:

Although you can’t see it, there is another ‘bearing’ for the jig on the inside of the boat.  The ‘bearing’ inside and out controls the alignment of the boring bar.  My boring bar is a homemade affair, of course, and is just some black pipe with a cutter inserted in it, and an old hole saw brazed onto the end to fit a drill.  Driving this rig can be a bit dicey.  Slow and steady wins this race.  So, there you go, no one has ever told me to my face that I’m boring, but I’m sure they’ve thought it.  Here’s proof!